The over 14,000 members of the two unions have been advised to opt for a pat-down, rather than step through the scanners, which the unions say are “intrusive.”

However, this is also a problem as some pilots are complaining about the recent updates to the TSA pat-down procedures that left one U.S. Airways pilot feeling as if he’d been “sexually molested.”

From USA Today:

The controversy is the latest flare-up in a long battle by pilots to streamline or eliminate the screening they receive. They argue that if they receive background checks, they should be able to enter the airport without undergoing security checks.

It would make more sense that they had to submit to a breathalyzer, but even that would be ridiculous. All security needs is proof that they are who they say they are. They’re getting on that plane one way or another and will be at the helm. TSA needs to BTFO.

Actually creating exceptions and loop holes to security procedures is stupid. Like faking a employee ID and buying a pilot uniform from Cintas is really difficult these days. Get the pilots a biometric ID system that lets them accurately authenticate themselves then they can bypass the TSA fondle-fest.

Yes, but pilots have to go through screening quite often. It’s more than just being intrusive, it’s also being exposed to (low level) radiation on a regular basis. This is in addition to the higher than normal radiation they are exposed to when flying. According to some other articles, it’s much less radiation than a typical x-ray, but if you’re exposed to it 1x or 2x per day, it could become an issue over time.

Note how no actual radiation exposure value has been reported, making it quite impossible for people to judge the risk of exposure. Of course people object — it is reasonable and rational to do so.

Also, has the scanner software has been independently verified and validated for safety? There are many, many cases of medical radiation equipment being improperly programmed, and delivering lethal does of radiation. The same principle applies here. Machines that deliver radiation can kill you.

The machines are dangerous until proven otherwise. Your government does not care.

I’m flying on the 24th through O’Hare. I’m hoping I don’t have to ask for a pat down, but I’m not going through the full body scanner, no matter what. I had an ex who worked for customs and boarder enforcement, and a practical joke that they would play on the newbies would be to get them to go through the scanner, and then laugh at the picture. You really can see everything.

Why should pilots get special treatment over everyone else?
No one is seeing the image of the xray anyway besides that one agent in the back room. And it gets deleted right away.
And if people find the xray’s exrotic and pornographic, they have other problems.

Um, because they’re the pilots? You can’t stop them from gaining control of a plane, because it’s their job to have control of the plane in the first place.

We do security scanning because terrorists can bring items on a plane that can help them take control of the plane, like box cutters. A pilot doesn’t need a box cutter to gain control of the plane, as he already has it.

To play devil’s advocate, this idea is flawed. If pilots weren’t subject to security, then a pilot could help with attacks on planes other than the one that he flies. For example he could bring contraband through the checkpoint and then give it to someone else to use on a different flight.

Forget about terrorists for a moment.
Let’s say that they need some extra money. So they think they can become a mule, and swallow balloons full of drugs. Without a body scan or going through any kind of security no one would even know.

Even if a full body scanner could detect a swallowed balloon of heroin, that is precisely the reason that these machines are a violation of our 4th and 5th amendment rights!

Okay, so they purportedly want to try and prevent a terrorist attack–Apparently the track record isn’t terribly good at keeping guns, and knives, etc off planes, but that’s besides the point.

Now let’s add in a heaping handful of mission creep, and let’s scan for controlled substances, right? How about obscene materials while we’re at it? Illegally downloaded movies perhaps? Why don’t they just review last year’s tax return which they pulled off your laptop too? Perhaps they should review the call logs from your cellphone, see if you’ve been talking with terrorists, their sympathizers, or perhaps you might be cheating on your spouse, or having a same-sex relationship? Gitmo for you!

Would you like to get an x-ray 2x per day? As often as most people fly, it’s not much an issue. But when you combine the background radiation of flying and the scanner, it could have long term health problems. When people became pilots, this wasn’t a hazard of the job; now it is.

These aren’t x-rays. X-rays are very powerful ionizing radiation that is proven to damage cells. These are mm-waves which are much safer. There is a lot of armchair scientists who “think” they know these cause damage, but that is yet to be proven.

It’s still radiation and pilots are already exposed to much more radiation than almost any other type of worker. Pilots have to go through background checks far more thorough than any questioning the TSA does. They’re pilots; they aren’t going to be a terrorist and try to take over the plane because their job is to, well, take over the plane. There’s a program where pilots can be certified and allowed to carry firearms in the cockpit. Is the TSA going to confiscate a spork and then give back the pistol to the pilot? The whole thing is a bad idea.

But what good does scanning them do? All they have to do is aim the plane DOWN, and they can crash it into anything that they want. Why would you be afraid of potential explosives or knives? The background check and hopefully a psych screening are all that you can really do to try and identify risky individuals when giving them total control.

Except, as a previous poster mentioned, a pilot could bring through contraband. And never get caught, since none of them get screened, so nobody would KNOW how the terrorist on flight xxx got his knife/gun/bomb; nobody would know it was from pilot yyy, and he could do it again and again, while the rest of us submit to full x-ray cavity searches and colonoscopies as security tightens and most people submit.

Nothing will eliminate the chance that someone will commit a crime. But a properly designed and implemented background check will reduce that threat to a manageable level. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any background checks, for anyone, anywhere.

I’m another person who’s had, not just a ‘background check’, but a full ‘background investigation’ for work, and I think that’s in the system, going by how easy it is for me to get my CCW licenses(I have them for multiple states).

Basically, I’ve been investigated as thouroughly as you would a air marshal or pilot as opposed to a ‘mere’ TSA agent.

Proper investigation/background checking will reduce the odds of the investigated being a terrorist that, in my opinion, allowing me to carry a weapon on board would increase security, not decrease it.

That would amount to several thousand ‘free’ air marshals flying every day, and probably even worse from the terrorist’s perspective, people who don’t fit the standard air marshal profile, even if we might not be as skilled.

Because we can trust the TSA’s background checks and all…
(earlier this year)
A Transportation Security Agency worker who pats down members of the flying public was charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl yesterday.

The bust outraged privacy and passenger advocates who say it justifies their fears about Logan International Airportâ€™s full-body scanner.

I will never ever go through a full body scanner. They literally show a life like naked picture of your body, not to mention the x-rays that your body will absorb. I will always asked to be pat down, if they won’t i will turn around and walk out of the airport.

I think if the pilot is being trusted enough to not fly the plane into any object that he wants, then he or she should be trusted to not bring other stuff on the plane. I certainly wouldn’t want to get scanned every day, especially when it wasn’t something I agreed to or foresaw when becoming a pilot. I understand requirements like this will always change, but for something as unnecessary as this?

In the “Land of the Free”, you are free to choose between the Nude-o-Scope and the Genital Grope when you travel. God bless America.

And it’s all security theater, so that when the next incident inevitably happens, our elected officials and career bureaucrats can hang onto their phoney-baloney jobs by claiming “well, we were doing all we can to Keep You Safe™; who could have foreseen the rectum bomber?”

When government resorts to such stupidly ineffective theatrical displays, stomping on our civil rights just for show, the terrorists are winning. But if we accept that the price of freedom is that not every “evildoer” will be thwarted, the terrorists lose and become mere criminals.

But let’s face it, in this hyper-partisan world, no president is going to scale back security measures. Because what if a terrorists succeeds after relaxing any security measure? The political fall-out would be immeasurable- civil rights be damned.

Pilots and crew would be exposed to a massive amount of cumulative radiation. The conservative estimates are one in 200,000,000 scans will cause a cancer related death. So lets say that’s 3 flights per day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks per year = 750 scan/year. Over a 25 year career that’s one in 10,000. That is in addition to the increased radiation you get just for being on a plane.

Although I love the idea of subjecting some TSA worker to the view of my body (kinda turns me on) it’s a major health risk. Popping a Viagra 20 minutes before my sack check, priceless.

While I agree that pilots and flight crew should not be subjected to the full body scanners, I detect a small flaw with your calculations. Even if each crew, on average, works 3 flights a day, I don’t think they would normally exit the secure area and then reenter through security. More often than not, they would stay within the secure area and head to their next plane (or continue working the same plane to its next destination).

The point is adding a additional cancer risk to the already large pile of them we put ourselves into every day. For pilots and crew this is worse because its a daily scan/dose they would have to take just to do their jobs. If I had to fly for a living I wouldn’t want to be scanned either.

I think most people are uneducated to any of these dangers and risks and they just accept it to get to their planes faster and easier.

Unlike the x-ray machine at your doctors office this machine has no federal requirements and safety checks to make sure that it doesn’t zap you with too much radiation. When it does happen there is no way to know that it occurred. Personally I will not subject myself to this and if I was taking my family on flights I would not subject them to it as well.

Yes I know there is radiation all around us and in nature but this is machine is unnatural and can occur to often for me to feel comfortable with it maybe after a few years they might have some safety studies done and controls in place to make sure the machines are safe and regulated/tested but until then I won’t go through them.

To all the people who think this is a non-issue, and pilots and flight attendants should just take their lumps… you haven’t bothered thinking this through at all.

This machine is basically a type of radiating scanner, just like an x-ray, CT, MRI, etc. Going through once? No big deal. Going through it many times per year, as a frequent flyer would? Yup, that’s going to start adding up the radiation. Going through it potentially once a day or more, like pilots and flight attendants? OH HELL NO.

Being groped daily, possibly several times a day, is not an acceptable option either. How many of you would keep your jobs if every day, every time you came to the door you got probed in your breasts/butt/genitals? That’s right, it would get old really fast and you’d be griping up a storm. Don’t complain about their making a big deal of it.

pilots fly drunk and commit crimes too. its stupid to let anyone bypass security, u never know the day somebody decides to crack. I remember an article a few years back where some flight attendants were helping smuggle grenades!

“pilots fly drunk and commit crimes too. its stupid to let anyone bypass security, u never know the day somebody decides to crack. I remember an article a few years back where some flight attendants were helping smuggle grenades!”

We have to screen pilots, otherwise one might smuggle in a nailclipper and use it to fly a plane into a building!!!!!!

Theres one other thing that I think may turn the tide on this.. If more and more people refuse to fly, the airlines are going to start feeling the pinch (more than they do already) and the fewer people that fly will get hit with even more onerous “security-theater” and b.s. from the airlines trying to make up for the loss in revenue, causing these now-fewer flyers to re-think flying anymore either.. In my case, I haven’t flown since Oct 2003, and I do not intend to until/if this b.s. comes to a halt..

That’ll reduce the number of flights, but it won’t reduce TSA bloat and overreach, which comes from our paychecks. The airline bailouts also will come from our paychecks, and yet when bitching about taxes, we never stop to think about these wastes.

The ONLY reason for the overly-aggressive TSA molestation is to make the pat-downs so onerous that they will drive people into the strip-search, dick-measuring machines. However, if we all opted-out of the machines, it would cause so much work for the TSA molesters that they’d be screaming to get the machines removed.

I would (if I ever subjected myself to flying in the future, which I won’t) never allow myself or my family to go through the Nude-o-Scope for any reason. Ionizing radiation doses are cumulative, now mater how “safe” the TSA goons tell you. And if you opt-out, they’ll subject you to an “enhanced” patdown which is tantamount to a sexual assault.. just because you had the nerve to opt out. 4th Amendment? Wuzzat?